HISTORY TODAY MAGAZINE (March 25, 2025): The latest issue features ‘The Lost World of Ancient Assyria’ – The Library of Ashurbanipal, the African king at Edward VII’s coronation, the origins of India’s Brahmins, British witnesses to Buchenwald, spinning James I’s succession, and more.
Can Vietdamned: How the World’s Greatest Minds Put America on Trial by Clive Webb rescue Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre’s activism from irrelevance?
Civilization is a product of canons. The Bible is a canon, and while the Iliad and Odyssey were not quite sacred scripture to the ancient Greeks, the Homeric epics went a long way toward establishing what it meant for a man or a city to be part of the Greek world. That world was almost a synonym for civilization itself. What was not Greek was barbarian.
Noam Chomsky has attained fame in two different areas. He is a world-renowned authority in linguistics and also a major public intellectual. But while in the former area his achievements are universally recognized, even by those who disagree with him, this is not so for his work as a public intellectual, where he is idolized by some, respected by others, tolerated by yet others, and execrated by more than a few.
COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE (March 11, 2025): The cover of Country Life’s 12 March 2025 issue, featuring The Garden Hall at Pitshill House, West Sussex, as photographed by Paul Whitbread.
Water you wading for?
The village pond, once the hub around which community life revolved, is being reinvented as a ‘superpower’ habitat for rare species, finds Vicky Liddell
Sorry seems to be the easiest word
Deborah Nicholls-Lee makes no apology for asking why there is nothing more British than saying sorry (up to eight times a day, we regret to say)
Two’s company, three’s a crowd farmer
Jane Wheatley is impressed by a new European project linking farmers direct to consumers in an effort to ensure fair pricing
Peak sugar
Harry Pearson is sweet on Kendal Mint Cake, the original energy snack that is still going strong after conquering Everest and crossing the Antarctic
Arts & antiques
Nature’s beauty and vulnerability are laid bare in a new exhibition at Chatsworth in Derbyshire, as Carla Passino discovers
Josh Eggleton’s favourite painting
The chef and restaurant owner chooses a contemporary collage that keeps the viewer guessing
Like cats on a hot tin roof
A feline stand-off in a Wiltshire farmyard has echoes of tax and trade talks for Minette Batters
Gothic splendours
John Goodall hails the rebirth of Victorian gem Allerton Castle in North Yorkshire, some two decades after a devastating fire
The legacy
Kate Green lauds the brilliant, but tragically brief blooming of cello prodigy Jacqueline du Pré
The red army
Ian Morton reveals why we don’t want wood ants in our pants
The good stuff
Pretty pastels are back for spring, so think pink, says Hetty Lintell
Bring me everlasting flowers
Catriona Gray meets a man crafting blooms from coppiced hazel
If you want colour…
Picture-perfect primulas offer an easy way to festoon the garden with a kaleidoscope of colour, suggests Charles Quest-Ritson
Foraging
John Wright savours the peppery crunch and kick of black mustard, but he’ll never pick it in Yeovil
It’s a Scream
The wild work of Edvard Munch betrayed a troubled soul, but the Norwegian artist found salvation in Nature, declares Jessica Lack
Kate Green celebrates the Revd Gilbert White, the original ecologist whose 1789 book on flora and fauna has never been out of print
Mad as a box of frogs
Our amphibious friends were once thought to possess mystical powers and they now aid the advance of medicine, as Ian Morton discovers
The ghost of golden daffodils
David Jones traces the fall and rise of the Tenby daffodil — all but extinct in the wild, but making a return as a cultivated bloom
The lure of Venice
Matthew Dennison investigates Britain’s long-standing love affair with the Italian maritime republic, fuelled by Canaletto’s enchanting, kaleidoscopic vedute
Playing the fool
Who could have foreseen the influence of tarot cards down the ages? Deborah Nicholls-Lee delves into decks and divination
Dr Ximena Fuentes Torrijo’s favourite painting
The Ambassador of Chile picks a vast, dreamlike Surrealist work that portrays a turbulent world.
A sense of delight
John Goodall marvels at the outstanding array of new and restored buildings on the grand Aldourie estate in Inverness-shire
Snakes and snails and puppy-dog tales
Matthew Dennison pays tribute to Peter and Iona Opie, who pre-served much-loved folklore and fairy tales for future generations
The good stuff
Work out in style with Hetty Lintell’s elegant exercise picks
Interiors
Amelia Thorpe shares the best of London Design Week wares, plus an elegant room with a view
Shaping the view
Tiffany Daneff admires the vista of rural Northamptonshire from the delightful Modernist garden created for a converted cart house
Foraging
Listen in as John Wright shares his thoughts on wood ears, the fungus with a gelatinous texture
Arts & antiques
Thomas Girtin’s exquisite landscapes were a match for Turner before the artist was cut down in his prime, reveals Carla Passino
History triumphs over invention
A brilliantly acted historical play conquers overproduced Greek mythology for Michael Billington
The author of ‘A Chance Meeting’ talks to Apollo about the reissue of her dazzlingly original account of more than a century of artistic endeavour in the United States
The designer’s wallpaper patterns are so familiar that they’re in danger of being taken for granted – but there’s still plenty to discover if we look more closely
The non-stop English springer is still our number one working spaniel, reveals Matthew Dennison, as he delves into this enthusiastic, energetic breed
Snake, rattle and roll
Rob Crossan investigates the deeply spiritual origins of that enduring family board-game favourite Snakes and Ladders
Heard it on the radio
The wireless broke new ground as the first form of home-based mass entertainment and is still going strong in the age of the smart speaker, finds Ben Lerwill
Friends with benefits
Nematodes are a natural way to halt the march of all manner of garden pests and Charles Quest-Ritson is a convert
Mould and behold
Josiah Wedgwood was a brilliant businessman with a remarkable social conscience. Tristram Hunt assesses his life and legacy
Catch us if you can
Owain Jones sizes up six of the best as he picks out the players to watch in this year’s Guinness Six Nations rugby extravaganza
Roger Morgan-Grenville’s favourite painting
The conservation campaigner selects a work that inspired his lifelong obsession with seabirds
A Palladian premonition
Richard Hewlings offers a fresh analysis of the architecture at Bramham Park, a highly original West Yorkshire country house
The legacy
Kate Green remembers Robert FitzRoy, the founder of the Met Office whose name lives on in the BBC’s Shipping Forecast
Dear country diary
Paul Fleckney flicks through The Guardian’s Country Diary, which has offered a snapshot of rural life for more than 120 years
Interiors
The best stoves and fireplaces picked by Amelia Thorpe, plus the alternatives to burning logs
Luxury
Hetty Lintell’s top timepieces and James Haskell’s favourite things
Magnificent mahonias
Charles Quest-Ritson makes the case for mahonias, arguing that their pleasantly scented flowers are a seasonal delight
Kitchen garden cook
Melanie Johnson pairs peppery horseradish with salmon fillets
Ring-dove beauteous!
John Lewis-Stempel coos over the much-maligned wood pigeon, that canny, keen-eyed and fast-flying stalwart of our countryside
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
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